Ideally, the drive should be, in order of importance, reliable (low to no misburns), produce good quality burns, and be fast.

I want support for at CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVD-RAM. Other formats would be nice, but are not required (especially if the price with the features is very much greater).

Crossflashing to acquire media type support is acceptable.

I was considering the LG GH24NS50. Reviews seem to indicate the drive is decent, but no RPC1 firmware seems to pubilcally exist yet (Although firmware its firmware XP01 is currently available from LG).

Actually almost all burners are capable of producing good quality burns nowadays (exceptions like LG H55N or Samsung 22x burners may apply). However, if you wish to burn important data for archival, it may be better not to use the full 24x recording speed, but instead picking 16x or even 12x.

My past experience with retail LG CD burners was quite positive. I never had a misburn and burns were of good quality.

It seems that the quality of LG disc burners has not decreased.

If you burn the media at its rated speed, then any modern DVD burner will fit the need, irregardless of LG or not. But if you start to overspeed the burning process, then LG is not a good candidate. I have a 24NS50, but there are better choices out there.

If you want to go for another brand:- Optiarc 5240/7240/7241 24x DVD burners enjoy a good reputation for burn quality, too.- LiteOn iHAS524 (A) (make sure you get the model with A and not with Y at the end) 24x DVD burner has other functionalities such as Disc Erasing and learning mode.